Personal

User Tools

Friends

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villan.

If Reckful didnt come back to WoW after he quit in Cata he would have left a legacy as the best arena player of all time. In recent years his shenangins and amtics on wow amd stream kind of tarnished the reputation of being a top player. However, his past accomplishments and videos will always be respected and impressive.

Hes an entertainer more than the pro gamer he was known as at this point, which isnt necessarily bad, but its just a shift in his image.

Although, can you blame the guy? Sure he sold out, but who wouldn't want all the donations and money he gets just for playing games and having fun?

Although imo he fucks around with way too many other woman and Jenna probably deserves better. Maybe shes in it for the fame/money though who knows.

Hi there, I am Leekzy - a swedish guy with a (very) swedish accent who has played Mage since season 2, achieving Rank 1 and Gladiator multiple times with my highest rating ever being 3114 in Season 15. This is the first guide I've written for AJ, and it's aimed at a bit more inexperienced and newer players - although you may find that you can take something from this as an advanced player aswell!

Shoutout to Vanguards, whos Retribution guide served as an excellent template!

So what is actually different in Warlords of Draenor as a Frost Mage?

1.) Tons of abilities have been removed from the game (R.I.P. Evocation, Fire Blast and Mana Gem) and a lot of the mechanics of the spells/talents/specializations which weren't removed has changed. I recommend reading this summary if you haven't checked it out already for a lot of solid info.

2.) M-M-M-MULTISTRIKE. New stats have been added to the game which change the way we gear drastically due to the changes to some of our core mechanics (i.e. Brain Freeze).

3.) Removal of Improved Counterspell and other "blanket" silences! This is a change which affects us immensely - and although it might seem bad at first this is actually (imho) a buff to mages - more on that later!

4.) Der..Deep* Freeze now breaks on damage.

...

Oh well! This might seem bad at first glance (and it's definitely a nerf), but it plays out pretty well in the actual gameplay. Let's delve into the world of Crowd Control (CC) and getting creative with Deep Freeze later on in the guide!

5.) Diminishing Returns (DR)! A lot of changes have been made to DR's in WoD, most of which you can read here.
This changes the way a lot of Mage comps play and it's something that should be kept in mind going into WoD as a Frost Mage!

Important to note is that if you play with Ice Nova it also DR's Polymorph.

First of all - the class is actually really fun to play in arenas at the moment! A lot of changes in WoD makes it an overall smoother and much more enjoyable experience to play a Mage in the arena. I feel like we still have a really high skill-cap and can play with every class that's in the game currently.

Talents

Below is my default arena spec - but this is something that can and will change depending on what composition (comp) that you play and play versus.

Remember that nothing is set in stone guys, experiment, have fun - if you see something and think "hey this might make me kick that huntards ass" then by all means go for it.

What's following is my personal approach - I feel like these are really stable choices with the most arguable one being the level 45 and 100 tier.

**CHECK MY POST ON PAGE 3**

Level 15:
I recommend:

This talent is amazing to have as a Mage - it really opens up for a lot of "plays" to be made both defensively and offensively and is just solid mobility in general. Practically a baby Rocket Boots. With 25 sec cooldown (CD). Go figure.

Level 30
I recommend:

I feel like this just is the most solid choice here, sure a lot of classes have some form of purging ability which can get rid of Ice Barrier but use it with good timing and it's still a really solid defensive out and CD. Alter Time was changed and no longer resets your buffs (only HP and position), from my testing it's highly situational in its current state.

Level 45

I recommend:

Ayay, everything is viable???

RoF is just a solid choice which enables us to get CC rolling easier, something that is useful vs every comp you can face.

All of these talents have really good specific uses, however since Ice Ward now DR's with our other novas and RoF is a better CC to peel with Ice Ward will mostly see use versus comps that sit on the Mage from start to finish.

Frostjaw can actually be AMAZING as a peel/setup vs certain spellcleaves since it's actually a Silence - be aware Dwarfs' can remove this with Stoneform though!

Level 60
I recommend:

Amazing talent, pretty self-explanatory.

Can be used if you are locked out on your Frost-tree to enable Ice Block anyway.

Level 75
I recommend:

Although Frost Bomb does alright damage the utility and on demand burst that Ice Nova offers is in my opinion too good to pass up.

There are so many uses for this outside of just doing damage as it acts as a mini-stun (interrupts casts momentarily for example) that hits Area-of-Effect (AoE).

Level 90
I recommend:
Incanter's Flow is a rather awkward talent to understand at first but once you get the hang of it it's pretty simple: you deal more damage, and if you time it well you deal A LOT more damage.
Mirror Images does a lot of damage aswell and can definitely be the way to go vs some comps, I predict that it mostly will see use in 1v1 and 2v2.

Level 100
I recommend:
This talent is awkward to use, awkward to understand and it covers the screen in lazer beams. Fear not though - once you lose your Crystal virginity I doubt that you will want to go back to Comet Storm!

Although the CD of Prismatic Crystal is rather long (1,5 minutes) its definitely worth it over the underwhelming damage that Comet Storm offers in my opinion, and with some solid placement and CD usage (Lance with Icicles, 2x Frost Novas with Frozen Orb ticking is insane damage) you can actually close to slay an entire team with this talent!
Comet Storm also went down in "value" for me after they changed it so that you can't use it while being locked out on your Frost-tree.

Glyphs

A lot of choices here.
I change around my glyphs a lot depending on what I am playing vs. Most of these are pure preference!

Primary Glyphs:Glyph of Polymorph - Highly recommended if you play with any class that might put a DoT on anything.

Glyph of Icy Veins - Now gives you 45% Multistrike instead of spell haste. Click, clack boom. Loss of the utility the haste gives though, I swap around this glyph from time to time.

Glyph of Ice Block - Makes you immune to all spells for 3 seconds after using Ice Block and unleashes a Frost Nova around you. This glyph can both save lives and act as an offensive tool, however it lost some of its value offensively for me due to the blanket silence change.

Glyph of Spellsteal - Spellsteal also heals you for 4% of your maximum health when you use it.
Really good glyph for surviving in 2v2/3v3, watch your mana however as it's very mana intensive to spam!

Glyph of Splitting Ice - Your Ice Lance and Icicles hit an additional target for 50% damage. This glyph feels really good with Prismatic Crystal, test it out for yourself.

Glyph of Regenerative Ice - You heal 4% of your maximum HP every second while in Ice Block. Really situational for 3v3, has uses in 2v2 though!

Enchants/Stat-priority

**CHECK MY POST ON PAGE 3** - the info below no longer holds true!

My opinion on stats comes from discussing gear with other top level Mages and testing different gear pieces out - if you got any input please reply to the thread and I'll consider editing the post!

Int > Multistrike > Haste >= Crit > Versatility = Mastery

Recommended Gems:

Multistrike.

Recommended Enchants:

Neck: Multistrike, 50-75Cloak: 100 Multistrike and 10% Movement SpeedRings: 30-50 MultistrikeWeapon: Mark of the Frostwolf (Multistrike), currently it costs a round 10-15k on most servers though so Mark of the Shattered Hand works just fine.

Which comps can I play in WoD as a Frost Mage?

So far it feels like you can play with pretty much every class!

If I were to predict our strongest comps based on my current experience in wargames and skirmishes I would say that these comps all will be viable:

Warrior/Mage/Healer

Rogue/Mage/Healer

Feral/Mage/Healer

Moonkin/Mage/Healer

SP/Mage/Healer

Lock/Mage/Healer

DK/Mage/Healer might make a truly solid appearance aswell, although I haven't gotten around to trying the comp out!

Macros:

These are the macros I personally use, I recommend checking out previous Mage guides on AJ for more input since not a lot has changed macro-wise!CLICK HERE FOR MACROS

Gearing your Mage for Arenas
Gear according to stat priorities and get 4 piece for the set bonus (serves as dispel protection mainly!) with the legs for maximum multistrike.

Whether you come from TBC, WotLK, Cata or MoP into WoD one thing is certain - Mage now plays differently from any other expansion.

While I am sure the removal of Deep-Blanket for kills confuses and annoys a lot of Mages (how am I even able to kill something on my own anymore?) it's important to remember that adapting to the metagame is the single most important going into a new expansion. There is light at the end of the tunnel guys, it's just a different tunnel we're in!

Mages now rely on getting solid CC rolling on the enemy team and ramping up your damage to be able to unleash at the moment you want to burst - for examples stacking up a few icicles so that you know that when that CC lands on the enemy healer you are ready to do massive damage.

A lot comes down to managing your Ice Novas, if you are able to stack up 2 or even just 1 with some solid Fingers of Frost (FoF) or Brain Freeze (BF) procs you can do insane amounts of burst damage! Mashing the abilities right as they pop up on cooldown might make you do overall more damage but gimp your potential burst, something which is important to understand to be able to land kills.

The removal of blanket silences has really helped us land CC - fake casting is now better than ever and this change lets you do something you rarely could do since the end of WotLK - actually Deep Freeze someone, fake a Counterspell (CS) or interrupt and then actually get a Polymorph or Ring of Frost cast off straight afterwards!

A neat little trick you can use is to simply Deep Freeze the enemy healer, start casting RoF and tank the interrupt while spamming your Polymorph binding - this guarantees that you will land either the RoF or the Poly on the healer. This was not a possibility before simply due to the fact that you got blanket silenced even though you managed to fake the CS.

Another tip is to track the Dispel Cooldown of enemy healers - this was incredibly important in MoP and it still is, maybe even more so in WoD! This truly allows us to start abusing the beauty of Polymorph and our other CC's. I personally use Gladius to track it, I'm sure there are other addons which does this aswell.

Last but not least I want to share a simple yet very effective trick that I wish I knew of when I started playing mage for getting cross-CC (Crowd-Controlling multiple opponents in the arena) rolling.

Say you're looking to CC a healer, but you need to prevent a Shadow Priest from Mass Dispelling him out of your Polymorph and you do not have your CS off cooldown. What you can do is that you Polymorph the SP, while spamming your focus Deep Freeze macro on the enemy healer - these two spells should land at the same time, basically starting the double-CC. You can then cast a RoF on top of the Deep Freeze and voila, you just controlled two players by yourself without having to mess with dispels and whatnot.

Thanks a lot for reading, hopefully this gave you some form of help going into Warlords of Draenor as a Frost Mage - if you got any questions feel free to PM me on AJ or Twitch.TV - I'll try my best to reply to everyone.

Introduction
Hey I'm Jack, I'm a 2.8+ Rogue who's been playing since the end of Wotlk. I only started PVP'ing last season mainly because of a poor computer which caused me to fps lag inside arena. I'm basically a MoP hero achieving my first Gladiator titles on 2 of my rogues both in 3s and 5s. I usually camp in Elwynn a lot and often get asked questions by other Rogues so now I'll have somewhere to direct them where they can hopefully clear up any queries they have.

Why Subtlety?Subtlety
Sub is the one spec for Rogues which has on demand damage which isn't gimmicky with a long cd, we're able to pump out big damage every minute and put constant pressure out in any other stun locks.

Combat
Combat is probably the strongest rogue spec in the current meta game because of the overall damage output as well as 6-10 second kidney shots & low cd cooldowns.

Assassination
Assassination's currently an extremely strong spec simply because of the damage output it may or may not be better than Sub at the moment so lets not go any further into that.

What's Changed
Burst of Speed now costs 30 Energy (up from 15 Energy)
Nerve Strike now reduces the targets damage dealt by 50% (up from 25%)
Tricks of the trade no longer gives a damage bonus to the target
Energetic Recovery has been built into our Slice and Dice
Find Weakness has been built into the abilities it benefited before
Combo Points are now on ourselves rather than the enemy
Rogues can now backstab people from the sides
Rogues can now ambush people from the front
Expose Armor has been removed
Honor Among Thieves can now trigger from the rogues auto attacks
Subterfuge no longer makes the rogue stealthed for the duration of the effect

Talents

Nightstalker - Not worth using, the only reason Nightstalker is good is for the vanish evis but it's far too gimmicky as at times you can vanish and auto attack out of stealth before you can get your evis off and with vanish being one of our best offensive &amp; defensive cooldowns it isn't worth the risk.

Subterfuge - Subterfuge is currently my talent of choice I feel it's still insanely good even with the stealth nerf. There are times a rogue needs to open with Garrote > Cheapshot and it's not always wise to waste your dance right off the bat when you can force cds without it.

Shadow Focus - After Subterfuge SF is probably your best bet enabling you to get off your opening cheap/garrote pretty much free of cost which then allows you to do a lot more damage with the energy you have left. I feel in WoD this will be the talent of choice to those who run without the Energy glyph.

Deadly Throw - I feel Dleadly Throw has always been viable however it requires quite the skillcap and combo point planning, I personally wouldn't choose it over the other 2 choices in the tree because of how strong they are.

Nerve Strike - Nerve Strike is a really strong talent for rogues as it makes our stuns even more effective for peeling reducing other enemy players damage by 25% for 6 seconds this can also help towards stopping the enemy team from getting counter pressure. (6.0 The Nerve Strike tooltip is currently wrong it reduces enemy npc's damage by 50% but only 25% on enemy players)

Combat Readiness - Combat Readiness is an insanely good defensive if used correctly, When fully stacked with feint you can take up to 80% reduced damage which is huge. If you're able to predict swaps vs most teams e.g. a rogue team this can often stop the need of your trinket and even a healer cd if used at the appropriate time.

Cheat Death - Currently in 6.0 Cheat Death is very viable because of how easy it is to get dropped in a stunlock in a matter of seconds but in terms of overall use it still comes in 2nd place to Elusiveness.

Leeching Poison - Not worth using.

Elusiveness - This has probably been the best choice of talent in the tree for entirety of MoP because its on demand damage reduction and it will probably be the best choice of talent in WoD too if it doesn't get changed. If used properly feint can become such a strong defensive tool for rogues if you're able to predict swaps or damage and pre feint it. (If you're not the best at using feint you can check out the feint glyph which adds 2 seconds onto the duration)

Cloak and Dagger - This talent may as well not be in the game as it's only ever been too good or not good enough Blizzard have never been able to find a balanced compromise for it. Overall in the current state of the game this is probably the worst choice of talent in the this tier.

Shadowstep - Currently in 6.0 I feel Step is the best choice of talent as it brings so much utility to a rogue when used properly. Step's an ability that's able to be used defensivly &amp; offensivly e.g. stepping partners to get restealths or los damage. With the removal of a lot of slows, roots in 6.0 Step is a lot more viable than previously as it can be used as a chase tool rather than a gap closer.

Burst of Speed - I feel BoS is still viable in 6.0 with the nerf to the energy cost however it can't be used the same way as before, you're not able to spam it every few seconds while chasing your target without becoming energy starved resulting in less damage output, however BoS is still an incredible tool for getting restealths and overall defensive play. (It will most likely still be a strong talent for something like 5s)

Prey on the Weak - Prey is currently the best choice of talent in 6,0 as most of rogues pressure comes from stunlocks having that extra 10% damage from you and your team is pretty huge.

Internal Bleeding -This is a really strong talent and be really scary when you're just piling damage into people although I still find it's 2nd best to Prey.

Dirty Tricks - Not worth using.

Shuriken Toss - Not worth using.

Marked for Death - MFD is the strongest choice of talent in this tier and it has been for a few seasons, it gives rogues a lot of ondemand damage which is usually paired with Shadow Dance to bring out some big Eviscerates which is where majority of your burst comes from.

Anticipation - This talent comes 2nd place to MFD however it's still a good talent it just requires a slightly different playstyle and more awareness to your Anticipation stacks if used properly it can be similar to having MFD but instead of being instant it's something you need to stack up. (This can be easily tracked, see addon section below)

Venom Rush - To me VR currently feels the strongest out of the 3 just because of the passive energy and 5% energy regen, even without focusing on keeping people poisoned it feels really smooth though every now and then throwing out a FoK to slow/peel/increase energy regen it can also make swaps feel a lot better just because of the extra energy regen if you swap to an unpoisoned target.

Shadow Reflection - This is probably my least favorite talent out of the 3 I find it to be more of a PVE/MongoPVP talent because of how it works, when you activate it for the first 8 seconds your clone will copy anything you do which includes stuns so during this time you need to take into account that it can completely fuck your stun drs up but if you're just spamming damage it puts out a lot of pressure which is one of the reasons a lot of Assassination rogues use it.

Death from Above - DFA can be a really strong choice of talent if used correctly it can be used for more than just damage because of how it works it shoots your character towards an enemy therefor making it a pretty good gapcloser but it can be bugged by various things like a priest going stealth etc.DFA can pull out some nasty crits if used with procs but overall it feels slightly clunky because of the high energy cost and finding a good time to use it where it will actually be useful with the travel time

These are just my opinions on the 100 talents for now and as time goes on I'll get further insight and information on them.

Glyphs

These are just the main glyphs you should be using but you might find there are rare occasions where other glyphs that might be better good for what you're doing.

Primary Glyphs

Cheap Shot - A strong glyph to use vs melee cleaves and in general teams where you find you won't be using garrote much or where you feel you'll need longer stun locks to kill/put out pressure.

Blind - This glyph is pretty much mandetory however if you play with Hemo glyph and you feel you're not ever going to be dotting a specific target i.e. the healer you can replace this with either Cheap/Garrote glyph you'll just need to watch out for dots on the target or anything that could break the blind.

Hemo Vein - This glyph makes your Sanguinary Veins trigger from your Hemorrhage dot which means you're able to keep it up much easier but this also changes your playstyle &amp; opener as you don't need to focus on applying rupture or even putting it up.

Glyph of Energy - This is another glyph I feel is mandetory since losing our previous set bonus which gave us 30+ energy allowing us to open more efficiently than without it due to energy starving.

Basic Openers

Rogue openers are different depending on your glyphs aswell as what you're facing.

There are a few problems with this, For starters the first ambush isn't going to be effected by SV so it'll be 35% weaker i.e. a wasted ambush for 60 energy unless you dance before which is a waste as you need to use globals to rupture inside of dance, also if you're to try this opener on a basic target dummy you'll find that you can't get the kidney off before youe cheapshot ends with the amount of globals you have, this causes a huuuge problem as you don't want your enemy to have any sort of time where they can peel or use defensives. This is tested on a dummy with full energy, chances are in an actual arena game you won't be starting with full energy because of applying slice or sapping a target.

Here are some videos which will further go into how to open on casters etc, they're from before 6.0 but they should still be valid.

What you need to be doing depends on the tide of the game you're playing.

If you're in a situation where you nor your partners are in trouble then your best bet is to either spam damage and get ready for your next burst oppertunity.
If you're in a position where one of your partners are being heavily trained and are in need of peels you need to step up with the removal of dismantle rogue have to be on their toes with peeling, we still have a lot of utility we can use to peel such as vanishing to throw out stuns (preferably not on the main target you need to keep him off dr for when you're ready to go) it's often a good idea to call your offstuns so people can follow up cc off them i.e.polymorph knowing he can't be kicked by a stunned target.
With the removal of Mind Numbing and dismantle rogues now heavily need to depend on shiv slows for peels vs melee cleaves, even using shiv on a feral can help forcing them to use a global on shifting instead of spamming damage into you or your partner.
Overall your job outside of burst windows is making sure you survive to see the next burst window, stopping damage &amp; cc on your partners while pumping out your own consistant damage, if you're not doing any of these things you should be going for a restealth with a plan in mind.

How to maximize damage outside of Dance

This is a common question I get asked "How do I damage outside of cds/dance?" etc

Rogues have priorities and if you follow these priorities you'll be fine.

Disclaimer rogue damage outside of cds is bad by default (Well before prepatch at least)

#1 Slice and Dice - S&D needs to be kept up at all times as it generates 8 energy every 2 seconds it also increases your auto attack damage which is where majority of our damage comes from.

#2 Sanguinary Veins - SV Increases our overall damage to the target affected by 20% after slice this is your biggest priority, however keeping SV up is different depending on if you play with Hemo glyph or not as Hemo veins glyph makes your hemo dot apply SV without the need of rupture/garrote.

#3 Backstab over Hemo - If you can't hit your targets back/sides and you're not energy capped it's often a good idea to just keep trying to get to his back/sides and then spam out all your energy with backstabs the only time you should hemo over backstab is if the target isn't letting you get where you need to be or if you need to apply your hemo dot for SV. But if you're going to energy cap (hit full energy) you should just spam out hemo so you don't waste energy.

#4 Pooling energy before stuns - In most situations it's a good idea to pool some energy before going for a full kidney or any other stun, e,g, if you're playing with Prey and you full kidney without any damage that 5-6 seconds of 10% extra damage is going to waste where as if you stun with 60+ energy you're going to be able to spam backstab for the entire duration of the kidney making your overall damage a lot better.

Should I rupture with Hemo glyph?

Rupture is an incredibly strong ability for rogues and its damage is increased by 10% by default because of Sanguinary Veins. Even when specced into Hemo veins glyph you should focus on keeping rupture up if you're training a target but only if you have the combo points to spare and you feel putting out that extra evis won't get you any sort of defensive/healing cd from the enemy team, also having that extra damage ticking when you burst can be fairly noticable and even the difference between someone living and dying.

Arena Plates - This is an extremely good addon which places a green border around an enemy players nameplate when they're out of combat which can help you get mid game &amp; opener saps.

Interrupt Bar - I feel people really underestimate how useful an addon Interrupt Bar can be. I use my IB to show the cooldowns of abilities that I feel It's important to keep track of as a rogue I'll post an image below.
(If anyone wants my Interrupt Bar settings send me a pm)

Omni Bar - Omni Bar is the new Interrupt Bar as IB no longer recieves updates, I'm currently trying this out.

Anticipation - The default combo points have a 30ms animation time which doesn't seem like a lot but it feels like a lot to me so I use this addon to speed up the animation down to around 15ms making my combo point animations slicker and smoother so I no longer have to wait for Honor Among Thieves to catchup with all the animations for each combo point.

There are plenty other good rogues who stream but these are just a few who are more consistant with how often they stream.

Pandemic Effect for Rogue buffshttp://www.wowwiki.com/Pandemic Since WoD every class has been given the pandemic effect warlocks had which basically means we can refresh our abilities like Slice, Rupture etc and have most of the remaining duration added on to the duration that you would get from however many combo points you use.

Overall this means you can refresh SnD with less than 10 seconds & Rupture with less than 8 and have much longer durations making the rotation better.

Missed anything / Stuff you want to see

This has been my first guide and I thank you for reading this far, if you want to see anything else I've maybe not included or perhaps something you want me to elaborate on feel free to ask.
In terms of stuff you'd want to see I can maybe add stuff like how to team fight as a rogue in RBGs etc.
Also feel free to pm me or contact me in game.